Fats contribute from 30-40% of the total calories consumed by most Americans. Both the American Heart Association and the National Cancer Institute have recommended that fat consumption be lowered to from 20-30% of the calories consumed. Despite these recommendations, successful reduction of fat consumption has not been achieved because of traditional American dietary habits. Therefore, the search for fat substitutes or low-calorie fats has attracted considerable attention in recent years.
Low-calorie food products comprising liquid polyol polyesters are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,600,186, issued Aug. 17, 1971 to Mattson et al. The Mattson et al. invention consists of low-calorie food compositions in which at least a portion of the fat content is replaced by a sugar fatty acid ester or a sugar alcohol fatty acid ester having at least four fatty acid ester groups.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,158,490 (1964) to Baur et al. discloses noncloudy salad oils containing esters of disaccharides, wherein there are not more than five unesterified hydroxyl groups.
An improvement to the Mattson et al. invention is disclosed in Jandacek, U.S. Pat. No. 4,005,195, issued Jan. 25, 1977, the improvement comprising adding an antianal leakage agent (AAL) in a sufficient amount to prevent frank leakage of the liquid polyesters through the anal sphincter.
An alternative to the low-calorie fatty acid polyester polyols described above is disclosed by Hamm in U.S. Pat. No. 4,508,746, issued Apr. 2, 1985. The Hamm invention comprises a "reverse ester" consisting of a polycarboxylic acid having two to four carboxylic acid groups esterified with saturated and unsaturated alcohols.
Other low-calorie fat substitutes that have been suggested include: neopentyl-type alcohols, triglyceride esters of .alpha.-carboxylic acids, diglyceride esters of short-chain dibasic acids, polydextrose, polygalactose, N-oil (tapioca dextrin), biopolymers, branched polysaccharides and jojoba oil.
Polysiloxanes have been used before in food compositions. Babayan, U.S. Pat. No. 2,998,316, discloses the use of organopolysiloxanes as an additive to vegetable oils to increase their smoke point. The preferred polysiloxanes are methyl and ethyl polysiloxanes, which are added to vegetable oil in amounts ranging from 1 to 25 parts per million.
More recently, polysiloxanes have been considered as potential low-calorie fat substitutes. Bracco et al., Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 46:784 (1987) has reported the use of organopolysiloxanes as potential fat substitutes. These authors demonstrated that obese Zucker rats fed ad libitum a diet containing 22% (wt/wt) methylphenylpolysiloxane (Dow-Corning 550 fluid) exhibited weight loss associated with a reduction in total body fat. Furthermore, these animals did not compensate for caloric dilution by increasing their food intake.
The potential for use of organopolysiloxanes to reduce fat consumption has gone unrealized because products acceptable for human consumption that contain or are prepared in these oils are unavailable. Accordingly, a need exists for food products in which all or a portion of the digestible fat content is replaced by a noncaloric fat substitute. Ideally, the noncaloric fat substitute should be one in which caloric dilution is not offset by increasing food intake. Furthermore, it would be highly desirable to employ the fat substitute in those food products which derive a substantial portion of the calories from fat.